This is a simple technique that I use all the time. The Actor headshot requires you to add borders to images and names to the bottom of your headshot so the casting director knows right away who you are.

Adding borders is simple. Here is how I do it:

Here is my image ready to be cropped. As I need to make an 8×10 final image, I crop my image to a specific size first:

Here I chose the Crop tool and set my parameters to Width 7.5 and Height 9 inches. I chose this size at it allows me to add my border perfectly for an 8×10:

I set my crop and then hit ok:

Here is my image cropped and ready for my white border:

To add the border, go to Image>Canvas Size and click to get the size box up:

Here I choose my width to be 8 inches and height to be 9.5 inches. The height gives me a continuous border that is the same size on all four sides.

Where it says Anchor, keep all the arrows pointing out from the center, which is my image.

On the bottom of the box where is says Canvas Extension Color, I chose white but you can choose black or gray as well:

Here is the image with the continuous border:

Now I go back to Image>Canvas Size, click again, and then change Height to 10 and Anchor to showing all the bottom and right and left sides. This allows me to change my height on the bottom only:

Here is my image in the 8×10 format with a 1″ border on the bottom and 1/2″ on three sides:

Now I go to the Text box and set my font, set my text size, and then color to add the name on the lower right corner of the image:

Here is the final ready to be saved as and delivered to the client:

Here are the before and after’s:

You can add a border to any image and set the bottom a bit thicker so that you can add a name or title or anything else you need.

I supply my actors with both images so they can use them for castings and in their book if needed.

I’m going to give you a quickie lesson today on sharpening soft images.

Sometimes you get an out-of-focus image. Sometimes that softness is really cool and you just leave it for artistic reasons, but other times the soft image you shot is the final image choice of your client. Now, you have to work on it to sharpen it for print output.

One great way to sharpen and then move forward in retouching is using the High Pass method.

Here is a screenshot of a soft headshot:

To repair the softness and begin to sharpen the image, I went to Filter>Other>High Pass:

When you choose the effect, you need to test a few times to see how many pixels to choose to sharpen the image. Here I chose ten. You can see the new layer on the layer palette on the right and the entire screen has gone gray. This is the effect happening on the image:

Here is the new layer not the left:

Now go to the Blending Mode and scroll down to choose Soft Light. This will produce a sharper image overall:

Here is the final sharpened proof ready for retouching. I normally sharpen after I’ve retouched, but here the image needed a bit of help before beginning to soothe skin.

Here is a before and after side-by-side:

That’s High Pass Sharpening. This is a great way to sharpen and image before or after retouching. Here, my client wanted this image, so I sharpened it so it looked better before heading to retouch.

Next time, I’ll show you how to soften skin using this method with a few extra steps. It works amazingly well and allows you to selectively apply softening and sharpening at the same time.

The last time I gave a tip, I taught you how to create an action. Today, I’m going to show you how to Batch Edit using that action.

Batch editing is one of those PS tips that will change a lot for you. No longer will you be editing images one at a time. PS really shines here as you are free to do other things while PS works for you.

Ok, on to the technique.

Here is a screenshot of a folder of retouched images I got back from my retoucher. On the right, you can see the size of the TIFF’s she sent me. I send all RAW images out and get TIFF’s back so I can final edit and then send them out to my client.

Now, go into PS and choose File>Scripts>Image Processor.

Here is where the batch editor lives.

Here is the box that comes up. I’ll go through each segment of it here:

Select your folder from your computer; this is fairly self-explanatory

Select your destination folder; I keep them in the original folder but you can move them to another folder if you want

Select File Type for your final output; here you can choose to convert your images to Jpegs, Psd, or Tiff. Your choice here depends on your final destination for the image. I normally stick with Jpegs.

Select your action to be run. Here, I chose the action that I taught last time: Web Sharpen.

Let’s take a look at my choices:

I chose my folder: Greta Jones Retouch

I save the edits in the same location

I chose to convert my Tiffs to web jpegs, so I checked the Resize to Fit to 800px x 800px. PS will automatically size the long side of the image and resize the short side, so your images will look like: 800 x 532 or something like that.

Here, I chose to Run Action, Default actions as this is where my action is stored, and I chose Web Sharpen. So as PS resizes my images it automatically sharpens them for output to the web.

Note: If you want to convert Tiffs to Hi Res jpegs, simple uncheck the Resize to Fit box and your Tiffs will become Hi Res jpegs instead. Then choose Hi Res Sharpen from box 4 and your images are all set for print output.

Note: If you have other actions you want to run, like something from Kubota Tools, simply choose that action and your images will get converted using that action.

Here is my folder now, with my newly-created folder of web jpegs. If you look on the right, you’ll see my Tiffs still there.

Here is the new folder with my web ready jpegs, see the size of the images, they are not 72 mb but 4-500 kb sized for the web.

I normally go back and then retitle the folder Web Jpegs. Then I run the Scripts Manager again and change my Tiffs to Hi Res jpegs for print.

That is the Scripts Manager! Let PS do the work for you while you get a coffee, go for a walk, or get lunch. You can batch edit folder of hundreds of images all at once while you go and do something else.

I love batch editing and it works perfectly for converting images from Tiffs or Hi Res to Web images.

Welcome to Photoshop Friday on a Tuesday. I get behind often, so watch out, someday I’ll get so far behind that Photoshop Friday will actually happen on a Friday, just stay tuned.

Ok, for today, I’m going to show you how to create your own action.

Here is a screenshot of the image I want to sharpen for the Internet. I gave you my web settings a few posts ago, but I’ll give you them again during the tutorial.

The first thin you have to do is get your action palette out of button mode. Click on the far right downward triangle to get into button mode and then uncheck the mode:

Once unchecked, your palette will look like this. Then, on the bottom of the palette, there is a small icon that looks like a sticky note pad with the lower left corner dogeared.

Click this button and this will start the action creating process:

Once the action creation process is started, a box will come up that asks a few question.

Here, I keep things simple:

Title: Web Sharpen

Location: Default Actions, this will put the action in the top portion of the list

Function Key Command: I don’t use this but you can

Color: I color code all the actions I create, here I chose blue

Once you fill in all the blanks, click record and your action will start to record. You will see the red button on the bottom turn on. Now, use Ctrl-J to duplicate your background layer:

Now go to the top of the page and select Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask and put in your web sharpening numbers:

Once this is complete, you will turn off the action by clicking the green square on the left of the action palette. You can see the action Unsharp Mask that you created in the action palette. Note, the left arrow points to the stop action box, it is not green here but it will be green when you click it:

Then we return to the top right corner and that little downward arrow to bring the action palette back to Button Mode and voila, your blue colored action for web sharpening is there in full view ready to use:

That’s out tutorial for today. On Friday, I’ll show you how to batch process and convert a folder of images into web images pressed and sharpened and ready for output for a client or web use.

One of the great attributes of Photoshop is the ability to have it work for you. I use Actions all the time to change the look of my images. I rarely have the time to truly mess around with my images, so I use actions to do most if not all the work for me.

You can make actions yourself, more on that next Friday, or purchase them form Totally Rad, Kubota, Pretty Presets, or any of the action set manufactures out there.

I love actions as I can batch edit or convert images en masse.

Let’s take a look at the basic action setup:

Here is Photoshop with the image I want to work on. In the upper right corner is the Action Palette Arrow:

See the arrow above. You click on the arrow to reveal the palette. Once the palette is up on the monitor, you can choose the action you want to run. Here, I will use Totally Rad Action Bitchen Blacka and White for my instant b/w conversion.

But if I choose the little downward pointing arrow in the upper right corner of the palette, I can choose button mode. This mode highlights my actions with colors and eliminates the two step process of choosing your action and then choosing to run it with the arrow above.

See how it is highlighted on the right in blue. Click on Button Mode and you’ll get a nice set of buttons to run your actions:

Now my Bitchen B&W action is ready to be clicked and the action run: one click service!

Here is my image after the action has run. Simple, easy, perfect:

Here’s a before and after that only took a few seconds. And if you don’t like it, drag and drop the action to the trash can and start over:

Actions are a simple and easy way to convert or save simple adjustments for your images. I have a 50% contrast adjustment, sharpening, and adding a copyright action that I built to save time.

I hope this helps and look for the next PS posts to be on creating actions and how to use them to batch edit your photos.

I’m not a Photoshop Guru: actually, I despise the time I spend in Photoshop. However, there are times when you need to dig deep and fix an image. All my basic retouching goes out to retouching professionals, but sometimes I need to do it myself based on budget and time constraint.

I generally have a love/hate relationship with seamless paper. Even though it is the industry standard and you can get some really cool colors for a good price, it is a pain to retouch later. If you lay the roll down, it gets a bow in it; if you roll it up once or twice, you wrinkle it; if you step on it, you ruin it. Get my drift on why I don’t like it?

But, it is easy to use and transport and every studio in the world has a selection of it on hand.

So I found myself having to retouch a background and was fumbling around when I found this amazing tutorial by my fellow photographer, Frank Doorhof in his book, “Mastering the Model Shoot.”

He gives the tutorial as a set of keystrokes. Since I’m a Mac user, all the strokes will be for a Mac, for you Windows guys, just swap keys accordingly.

Ok, here is my image of Katy that needs a background fix:

Ok, here is the process recipe in Photoshop:

After opening the image, press Command-J to duplicate the background and work on the top layer only.

After copying the background, hit Shift-W, this will activate the Magic Wand tool. Use it to highlight the background edges first:

If you look at my screenshot above, you’ll see how there is one section of hair not highlighted on the edge over Katy’s left ear.

Simple hit Command-Shift-I to invert the layer and then use your Magic Wand to adjust any missing elements:

Now that everything we want is highlighted, we can begin to work on the image.

Click Command-X to remove or cut Katy out of the image. This will happen on the layer only. You will still be able to see Katy, but the layer will show her removed. This is what you want so you can see the effect of your adjustment later on.

Now that Katy is removed from the background, we can work on smoothing out the wrinkled paper.

Go to Filter-Blur-Gaussian Blur and choose a blur amount to taste. You may need to do it several times to get the correct effect depending on the amount of wrinkles you need to move.

In this case, I chose 127.2 pixels by dragging the slider up and down. I did this three times until I found the right amount by eye.

Your image will look like this:

But you can still see and uneven look to the seamless paper. In order to smooth that further and to its final look, simply choose Filter-Noise-Add Noise and add noise from between 1-10 or to taste. I’ve not gone above 5 for any image.

Now your image will look like this:

Now for the final. Click Command-Shift-V to bring Katy back from being pasted out of the image.

Your layer palette should look like this:

And your image like this, fully repaired!

Then simply use Shift-Command-E to flatten your image.

Voila! You went from bad to good in a few quick steps.

Try this a few times. Once you get the keystrokes down, you can fix and image with a wrinkled seamless paper background in a few minutes.

So go from bad to good with the amazing tutorial:

Well that’s it for now. If you are coming to the Fitness Workshop on April 2, we’ll be shooting on a colored seamless so you can definitely try this at home!

One of the easiest ways to convert or process your photographs is by using actions in Photoshop.

You can make you own or get ones from companies like Kubota or Totally Rad. Actions are processing recipes that are run through Photoshop. You load the action, use the batch editor or scripts manager and Photoshop does the job while you get lunch or a cup of coffee.

Here’s an example. I took the photos from last Saturday and ran them through a black and white action. I loaded them into the scripts manager and processed all new images in black and white. I used the Totally Rad Actions Bitchen Black and White and love the look.

Take the guesswork out of your image processing and let Photoshop and actions do the work for you.

I usually take 5 images, put them into a separate folder, run a few different actions to see which I like the best, then run the whole entire folder or job to convert them all. You aren’t limited to B/W, there are tons of actions to help speed up your workflow.